The invention relates to an apparatus for drying and/or heating footwear, such as ski boots, ice skates, running shoes etc.
Several devices have been patented for drying and/or warming footwear by blowing a stream of warm air into the footwear. Prior devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,299,529, issued to Roberts et al., 4,145,602, issued to Lee, and 4,171,580 issued to Vabrinskas.
Some prior art devices tend to be rather bulky and complex, and thus commonly are not easily portable and tend to be costly to manufacture. Also, some prior art devices are adaptable to dry only a relatively narrow range of sizes of footwear. Consequently this type of device could not be used to dry footwear of young children having small feet, as well as drying the footwear of adults having larger sizes of feet. Consequently, at least two different sizes of foot drying apparatus of the prior art normally would be required. Also, many devices of the prior art utilize a discharge duct which passes freely through an open or ankle portion of the footwear to discharge heated air adjacent the ankle or towards the toe of the footwear. Air from inside the footwear, now moist and cooler, usually passes upwardly to exhaust through a clearance space between the discharge duct and open portions of the footwear. Clearly, if the footwear open portion is relatively small, and the duct is relatively large, the space for exhausting cooler moist air is restricted by the discharge duct, and poor circulation of air within the footwear can result. Conversely, attempting to dry (or warm) relatively large footwear with a relatively small discharge duct can produce a relatively low volume of heated air for drying the boot, which increases drying time unnecessarily.